Violent Weekend Concludes

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jul 6, 2009 2:00PM

On the heels of the announcement last week that crime in Chicago was down in the first half of 2009 over the first half of 2008, Chicago experienced one of its most violent weekends so far this year. Weekend violence accounted for 63 shootings, one stabbing, and a total of 10 deaths. Of course, looking back at last summer's violence, the bloody start to this July is pretty pedestrian, all the more reason to be skeptical about that recent decrease claim: last year's murder tally was the highest in five years, undermining the claim that violent crime is decreasing rather than just returning to normal levels.

In case you're interested (and we know you are) the Red Eye - yes, we know we've gone Mean Girls on them in the past but this time we mean it - has a pretty interesting feature tracking murders so far in 2009 and breaking it down statistically.